Lizzie’s Secret is historical fiction set in 1939 London. It opens with a dream scene prologue, Lizzie being chased and then her waking in a hospital with no memory of her name or how she got there. We learn that Lizzie was the victim of a brutal attack when she was just fourteen.

Now twenty, Lizzie lives with her Uncle and Aunt, we meet her at a job interview for a milliner. A job Lizzie quickly excels at, she befriends Beth and the girls enjoy double dating when they go out. Soon Lizzie is making special bespoke hats for clients brought in by Sebastian Winters, a man with his own hat shop.

As Britain falls further into the grip of war the lives of Lizzie and Beth are affected as their menfolk leave for war and they are left behind to wait and deal with the consequences of life.

The war years are popular storylines and this one with a milliner theme makes it interesting. However the book wavered on using dialogue for info dumping and there wasn’t much difference in the “character voices”. The copy I received for review contained several errors in content and editing which I would like to see ironed out, then this book would be a good example of its genre.

Very true, Rosie and Terry. I’ve got some pretty weirdly formatted books from Net Galley too and you would imagine by the time somebody gets them there they’d be pretty much ready to go, although they do have a warning.

Generally, I love reading fiction set in the WWII era. However, I really don’t care for ‘dialogue dumping’ to get the message across. Great review, Rosie!
@dino0726 from FictionZeal – Impartial, Straightforward Fiction Book Reviews